Fire and Rain
by abundanceofvowels
Summary: John's chances at a peaceful night are shattered with the arrival of his flatmate who will do whatever it takes to solve a case, even if that means being excruciatingly sexy at half past two in the morning.


Outside, the clouds were close to pouring. Street lamps glowed, casting a spectral sort of amber glow onto the misty drops that threatened to roll down the panes of glass that separated them from the cozy interior of 221B.

Inside, a fire had been lit and a very content and comfortable John Watson relaxed into the plush of the lovingly worn chair at its left. His flatmate had left hours earlier under the pretense of collecting samples of something from somewhere (John didn't worry himself with remembering the names when they were latin words over four syllables). It was one of the rare nights that allowed for the luxury of relaxation. No running after convicted criminals, stepping in puddles of bodily fluids, getting kidnapped, stabbed at, punched, or cajoled into whatever flavor of dangerous activity was on the menu. No, this evening's hors d'oeuvre was a hot cup of tea followed by a main course of a few chapters of the novel he'd been picking at between cases and shifts at the A&E and, if he felt like it, the treat of a warm nap without the worry of being woken by explosions or gunshots.

He managed two cups, four chapters, and what felt like ten minutes before, naturally, the door of their flat was thrust open deafeningly. John was up and out of his chair and bracing himself, blanket at his ankles, before the battered wood had ricocheted into the waiting palm of his mental partner.

"John! Oh, you're up. Brilliant. What are you doing in that ridiculous attire? We've got to drive out to Brighton this instant."

John's heartbeat had begun to settle to its normal rate and the dim light in the room no longer seemed to be burning through his retinas by the time Sherlock's comment on his pyjamas registered.

"My attire...what? Sherlock, it's-" he glanced at his watch where he'd left it on the arm of his chair "-two in the bloody morning!"

"The weather pays no mention of the time so neither should we. If we don't leave in the next half hour the storm will arrive before we do and wash away all of the evidence. Come on!"

John had done some outrageous things during the past few years he'd spent living with Sherlock Holmes in his company. They'd chased down criminals, gotten them arrested, gotten themselves arrested, gotten each other arrested (not one for the blog), and had been banned from several restaurants and theatres due to Sherlock's excitable nature. Despite it all, John found he had done very few things he could regret. He no longer just had a life. He was_ living it_. However, it was absurdly early in the morning and a sensible man had to draw the line somewhere.

"No. I refuse. No no no no no. Not happening. Ever. God, no. Absolutely not."

"Fantastic, I'll be-wait. What?"

John relished in the confusion on his friend's face. It wasn't something he saw often, let alone by his own hand.

"I'm not going, Sherlock. It's half past two, I'm in my pyjamas; and I'm going to stay in my pyjamas because I'm going back to sleep where it's warm and I don't have to deal with your comments about plant life or roadkill or the relationship between the shape of water on the windscreen and speed of a moving vehicle."

With a quick shake of his head, Sherlock's expression changed from one of confusion to annoyance. John smirked, smug from his display of steadfast resolve, and reached down to pick up his blanket and the watch from where they had been resting when Sherlock appeared at his side. His ability to move so stealthily was unsettling. John squared his shoulders and looked up to meet his flatmate's eyes.

"Look, Sherlock. I'm knackered and-"

Sherlock's pupils, blown wide, had the mesmerizing effect of having magnified the dying embers behind him into an inferno. The gaze sent an electrifying tremor down from the nape of his neck to his ankles, Sherlocks lips curled slowly into what was surely an illegally libidinous grin, and John Hamish Watson knew he was a goner.

Sherlock lifted the items gently from John's arms and leaned to drape them over the back of the chair at their side. He used the closer proximity as an excuse to drag the chilly tip of his nose against the blood racing through John's jugular vein. The warm breath exhaled into the collar of his sleep shirt caused the shorter man to swallow reflexively. Sherlock could be an insufferable tease if the mood had struck him and, by the fingertips leaving trails of goose pimples down John's exposed arms, he'd say it had just hit with the force of a wrecking ball.

Sherlock's nose had moved to the hinge of John's jaw from the hollow below his ear, the lobe of which was now being tongued and sucked in a way that made John's knees threaten to buckle. He grabbed at Sherlock's sleeves to steady himself and let out a small, breathy moan. Sherlock grazed his lips across John's cheek, leaving a trail of pleasant heat, and pressed their foreheads together so that their eyes could meet once more. Sherlock's long fingers, with John's attention elsewhere, had alighted on the elastic of flannel pants that were more than a little distended by obvious arousal, and were tracing circles on the skin across exposed hip bones. Sherlock's low chuckling huffs mingled with his gasping breaths and John started to feel a bit lightheaded. When the large hands moved to the small of his back and lower, grasped the weight of his arse, and pulled, John slammed into the man in front of him and they tumbled to the ground in a clumsy tangle of limbs.

"Prick..." John panted.

"Yes, I can feel that." Sherlock replied cheekily.

John used this new position to his advantage, moving to straddle one of Sherlock's legs. He leaned over the form sprawled beneath him on the hearthrug and smiled impishly.

"How long did you say we have?"

"Just under half an hour, now."

"Right. Best get to it, then." John lowered his mouth to the pale column of Sherlock's neck and sucked gently on a beauty mark.

"Knew it..." Sherlock's voice was low and glazed with lust.

"What's that?" John asked, licking a stripe from the graceful dip of the suprasternal notch, over a pronounced adam's apple and to the edge of an angular jaw before finishing with a light peck on flushed lips.

"I knew you'd agree...to come." It was obvious that talking was beginning to become an effort for his love. John cursed himself inwardly for falling prey to the affectionate attention earlier, but then laughed softly. He'd resolved to gain back the upper hand and knew just how to go about it.

"Yeah, that was kind of inevitable." He continued the delicate torment of kisses, laving the philtrum of Sherlock's heart-shaped lips occasionally with the tip of his tongue. "Question is, will I let you?" The inquiry was punctuated with a roll of his hips and growing stiffness against the top of Sherlock's thigh. Icy eyes widened in terror and then squinted in incredulity.

"You _wouldn't_."

"What? Use you and then make you drive with a raging hard on after you barged in and nearly gave me a heart attack, all so you could ask me to run off to Middle-of-Nowhere, Brighton to sift through some mud to find 'evidence'...yeah, I just might." He added in a few additional circles of his hips to show how sincerely excited he really was about the whole idea.

"No, John..._please_?"

And, really, if a begging and debauched Sherlock Holmes didn't ensure that the next "just under half an hour" was spent bringing everyone involved to as many pleasurable peaks as possible, the skies would surely have wept for the tragedy of it all.


End file.
